The Wrong Johnson

An Archive of U.S. Senator Ron Johnson's Embarrassingly Out-of-Touch Record

The stunning frequency with which Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson proves himself to be utterly out-of-touch, misinformed and even downright foolish in his public statements inspired us to chronicle the Senator’s extremism.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) should immediately apologize to the state’s more than 800,000 hardworking student loan borrowers for “ignorant comments, bordering on insulting” made to media yesterday, according to One Wisconsin Now. Johnson’s comments, reported by Wisconsin Public Radio, include Johnson claiming “There’s no such thing as a free lunch...” regarding efforts to curb the crippling $18 billion in federal student loan debt with which borrowers in Wisconsin are currently burdened.

On March 24, Strategy PAC – Johnson's leadership fund – wrote two checks for $5,000 each to Rubio's Senate committee. Rubio is up for re-election to the U.S. Senate next year, and it's not unusual for GOP senators to give to one another... "Johnson will need the Walker machine in his corner for 2016 to have a chance," said Scot Ross, executive director of One Wisconsin Now.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is demanding documents and threatening to use the oversight authority of the Senate committee he chairs in an apparent attempt to derail an ongoing federal Department of Justice investigation into the private school voucher program in Wisconsin. One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross said Sen. Johnson’s pandering is a blatant attempt to curry favor with the $800 million-plus right-wing Bradley Foundation and payback for a sweetheart deal for legal representation from the Bradley-funded Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).

"No one has fought as hard as Russ Feingold to get big money and corporate special interests out of politics, while Ron Johnson had his company write him a $10 million check a month after spending $9 million on his campaign to buy our U.S. Senate seat," said Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now.

Saturday marks three years since the student loan debt Americans are taking on to pay for their education and job training crossed the one trillion dollar mark. But according to One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and the Republican-led state legislature continue to ignore the plight of nearly one million state borrowers.

One Wisconsin Now executive director Scot Ross said Johnson's comments added "insult to injury" for Wisconsin's student loan borrowers. "He not only voted against a common sense plan to allow borrowers to refinance their student loans just like you can a mortgage, he also felt it appropriate to blame them for the crisis," Ross said.

This week U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in a public appearance not only blamed students for the $1.2 trillion student loan debt crisis, he followed it up with a vote on the Senate floor against legislation that would have allowed student loans to be refinanced to take advantage of lower interest rates.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said during a C-SPAN interview yesterday he doesn’t plan on self-financing his 2016 re-election campaign. What Johnson did not disclose is that after spending nearly $9 million of his personal wealth in 2010, he was given $10 million from his plastics company PACUR two months after his election.

Based on new federal campaign finance filings, One Wisconsin Now has updated their Federal Elections Commission complaint over U.S. Senator Ron Johnson and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty’s lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act. Johnson initially failed to disclose any legal fees for his lawsuit. In subsequent filings, including most recently in October, Johnson fails to provide sufficient details to determine if he is complying with federal campaign finance laws and the conditions for his legal service set by the Senate Ethics Committee.

One Wisconsin Now is demanding Gov. Scott Walker publicly apologize for the comments of Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, who claimed at a pro-Walker event in Sheboygan Saturday that “Democrats are doing GOTFV — Get out the fraudulent vote.”

A new online ad from One Wisconsin Now is targeting voters who care about issues like reproductive rights, student loan debt, marriage equality, minimum wage, worker and minority rights and clean government and reminding them that if they want to have their voices heard, “you gotta vote.”

Wisconsin’s U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson could be the deciding vote in the U.S. Senate on legislation authored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and sponsored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, to allow student loans to be refinanced. In June, the Senate fell just four votes short of overcoming a Republican-led procedural motion to take up the bill with five Republican senators and one Democratic senator absent the day of the vote. A second Senate vote on Sen. Warren’s bill may occur as early as Tuesday.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson was in Green Bay Thursday to deliver what he termed a “state of the nation” speech at the private, for profit Globe University in Green Bay. Prior to the event One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross denounced Johnson’s as harmful to the best interests of the nation and the economic futures of the over 40 million borrowers with $1.2 trillion in student loan debt.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is not simply a conservative, public interest law firm. It is a virtual extension of the political apparatus surrounding Gov. Scott Walker, engaging in ‘issue litigation’ to advance and protect his interests.

Rick Esenberg, head of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), today changed his story again in response to questions about how his organization, heavily subsidized by the Bradley Foundation run by Gov. Walker’s campaign co-chair Michael Grebe, is being paid for legal work he is doing for U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson. One Wisconsin Now originally filed a complaint in May with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) alleging U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson improperly failed to disclose incurred obligations and expenditures associated with his lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, in violation of federal campaign finance reporting requirements.

While Sen. Ron Johnson is in federal court today in his quest to undermine health care reform, One Wisconsin Now is updating its complaint with federal election regulators over Johnson’s failure to properly disclose his campaign’s spending for his legal costs. One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross noted tax records show over $10,000 in legal fees have been earned, and paid, in Sen. Johnson’s lawsuit to stop health care reform. But Johnson and his lawyers have claimed in both the media and on campaign finance reports that no bills have been issued or paid.

Research by One Wisconsin Institute found that this debt prevents borrowers from buying homes, starting businesses and investing in our communities. We need elected officials willing to fight for us. Instead, Johnson has shown us exactly who he is: an embarrassment to Wisconsin.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate today voted to block action on legislation authored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and sponsored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin to allow student loans to be refinanced. Nationally there are over 40 million student loan borrowers with over $1.2 trillion in debt. According to statistics from the federal Department of Education, there are 812,000 borrowers with over $18.2 billion in federal student loan debt in Wisconsin.

In a recent press release Sen. Ron Johnson announced he is calling for more “transparency” in the Congressional Budget Office’s fiscal analyses of the Affordable Care Act. Yet Johnson continues to ignore federal campaign finance regulations and hide how much he will spend on a lawsuit to stop health care reform termed a “political stunt” by a fellow Wisconsin Congressional Republican.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has said a lot about the $1.2 trillion student loan debt crisis – like calling for less financial aid for eligible students, more for-profit colleges and wondering why kids today can’t afford school like he did in the mid-1970s. According to One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross, Sen. Johnson’s disingenuousness was on full display today as he conflated efforts to help student loan borrowers refinance their loans with limited loan forgiveness programs and suggested that federal financial aid is causing tuition increases and student debt.

Recent statements from U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson on student loan debt reveal a need for him to go back to school on the issue, according to One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross. At a town hall earlier this week Johnson put his knowledge gap on display, claiming that education aid from the federal government was responsible for the $1.2 trillion student loan debt crisis.